LAUSANNE. Around 2,000 people marched through Lausanne on Saturday afternoon in support of the Palestinian people, in a demonstration that stayed peaceful for hours before a masked group smashed windows at a UBS branch, hurled red paint and threw fireworks at police, who answered with tear gas.
The rally began at 3pm on the Place de la Riponne and moved through the city, past the main station and on toward the Esplanade de Montbenon. It was called by the Kollektiv Lausanne-Palestine and the Association Palestine to gather sympathisers from across French speaking Switzerland.
The rupture came on the Place St-François, where around 60 masked individuals broke from the march. Windows of the UBS building were smashed, the facade sprayed with graffiti and doused with red paint, and fireworks thrown toward the officers present, a Keystone-SDA reporter at the scene observed. Police used tear gas to drive the group back.
Blood-Stained Neutrality
The marchers denounced Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza and, just as loudly, Switzerland’s place in it. One banner read “Blutbefleckte Neutralität”, blood-stained neutrality. The organisers accuse Bern of complicity in what they call genocide, famine and colonisation in Gaza and the occupied territories, and demand an end to military and economic cooperation with Israel.
The charge lands two weeks after Swiss voters rejected a constitutional tightening of neutrality by 70 per cent, a campaign in which both sides claimed the concept for themselves. Saturday’s march suggests the argument has not been settled by the ballot. It has merely changed venue, from the voting booth to the street.
Switzerland has seen regular Gaza solidarity demonstrations since the war began, most of them peaceful. Where property damage has occurred, at bank branches and federal buildings, organisers have usually distanced themselves from the masked fringes. On Saturday the two remained within metres of each other for most of the route.
A Difficult Balance for Bern
The Federal Council has condemned the suffering in Gaza, called repeatedly for a ceasefire and resisted pressure from the left to recognise a Palestinian state outside a negotiated settlement. That middle position satisfies almost no one: Israel’s supporters call it naive, the marchers in Lausanne call it complicity.
Police gave no immediate figures on arrests or injuries on Saturday evening. The demonstration dispersed at the Esplanade de Montbenon, above the lake, as the light faded.